Colonialism and imperialism Books

Book SynopsisAs the settler state of Canada expanded into Indigenous lands, settlers dispossessed Indigenous people and undermined their sovereignty as nations. One site of invasion was Kahnawà:ke, a Kanien'kehá:ka community and part of the Rotinonhsiónni confederacy. The Laws and the Land delineates the establishment of a settler colonial relationship from early contact ways of sharing land; land practices under Kahnawà:ke law; the establishment of modern Kahnawà:ke in the context of French imperial claims; intensifying colonial invasions under British rule; and ultimately the Canadian invasion in the guise of the Indian Act, private property, and coercive pressure to assimilate. What Daniel Rück describes is an invasion spearheaded by bureaucrats, Indian agents, politicians, surveyors, and entrepreneurs. This original, meticulously researched book is deeply connected to larger issues of human relations with environments, communal and individual ways of relating to land, legal pluralisTrade ReviewAs someone who has been teaching Indigenous studies courses for almost a decade... I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Indigenous history of Canada... I have no doubt that it will become a regularly cited work, but it is also written in such a away that members of the general public should find it not only accessible, but also interesting. -- Daniel Sims, University of Northern British Columbia * Canadian Journal of History *Daniel Rück presents a richly detailed and sophisticated history of land use rights and ownership on the Kahnawa:ke reserve over the course of a century. He is thoroughly impressive in his articulation of the many ways in which Indigenous and European laws are both at odds and, at times, complimentary. -- Bill Parenteau, University of New Brunswick * NiCHE *Table of ContentsIntroduction1 Kahnawà:ke and Canada: Relationships of Laws and Lands2 “Whereas the Seigniory of Sault St. Louis Is the Property of the Iroquois Nation”: Dissidents, Property, and Power, 1790–18153 “Out of the beaten track”: Before the Railroad, 1815–504 “In What Legal Anarchy Will Questions of Property Soon Find Themselves”: The Era of Confederation, 1850–755 “The Consequences of This Promiscuous Ownership”: Wood and the Indian Act, 1867–18836 “Equal to an Ordnance Map of the Old Country”: The Walbank Survey, 1880–937 “It is Necessary to Follow the Custom of the Reserve Which is Contrary to Law”: Rupture and Continuity, 1885–1900ConclusionNotes; Bibliography; Index

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Book SynopsisCombining a sensitivity to historical detail with a judicious search for general patterns, Empires will engage the attention of social scientists in many disciplines.Trade ReviewAs a contribution to multicausal analysis of social change, this is a major work. And, as a general introduction to European imperialism, its theoretical sophistication, broad sweep, and the clear presentation and organization of historical detail leave it with few peers. * American Journal of Sociology *Ranging from the Athenian empire to the nineteenth century, Michael W. Doyle attempts to construct a historical sociology of empires that will encompass imperialism's infinite variety.... He recognizes the diversity of empires and imperial motivation, the French 'civilizing mission,' Spanish Catholicism and, implicitly, British 'muscular Christianity.'... The overall argument... has a persuasive simplicity and symmetry.... Empires is an excellent introduction to current theories of imperialism, and an interesting attempt at a new synthesis. * Times Literary Supplement *The analysis of the causes and patterns of imperialism has long been a difficult academic exercise.... To structure this far-ranging phenomenon and arrange its course in a concise, interpretive essay takes pluck, if a good adjective from the derring-do novels of empire may be used here. Michael W. Doyle had that pluck and has succeeded remarkably well in his task. This is a splendid essay, an effective combination of broad historical analysis and well-presented theoretical assessments derived from the social sciences. The book will no doubt stand as one of the best contemporary syntheses of the progress of imperialism.... Doyle has read widely and well. He has mastered his material and has done with it something masterly: he has made the whole more than the sum of the parts. What follows next from the lively mind of this scholar will be pleasantly anticipated. * American Historical Review *

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Book SynopsisOverextension is the common pitfall of empires. Jack Snyder identifies recurrent myths of empire, describes the varieties of overextension to which they lead, and criticizes the traditional explanations offered by historians and political scientists.Trade ReviewMyths of Empire offers the best-developed theory to date of the domestic sources of international conflict and security policy.... Snyder has taken a major step toward ending the theoretical impoverishment of the study of the domestic sources of international conflict. * American Political Science Review *In support of his case, Snyder draws upon recent research into the determinant of foreign policy of the leading powers since the mid-19th century.... Historians and still more international relations specialists will find much of interest in this analysis. * Times Higher Education Supplement *Table of Contents1. The Myth of Security through Expansion2. Three Theories of Overexpansion3. Germany and the Pattern of Late Development4. Japan's Bid for Autarky5. Social Imperialism in Victorian Britain6. Soviet Politics and Strategic Learning7. America’s Cold War Consensus8. Overexpansion: Origins and AntidotesIndex

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Book SynopsisIn this richly comparative analysis of late Muscovite and early Imperial court culture, Ernest A. Zitser provides a corrective to the secular bias of the scholarly literature about the reforms of Peter the Great.Trade ReviewZitser argues that 'the Drunken Council was not an institution at all, parodic or otherwise; it was a discourse, that is, a way of speaking about royal authority that was constitutive of political relations as much as a reflection of the way power was distributed and organized at the court of Peter the Great.' It is this insight or thesis that allows Zitser to seek a harmonious integration of seemingly disparate elements in the culture of Peter's reign and to provide both a contemporary European context as well as a modern theoretical dimension by his wide-ranging reference to primary and secondary sources. The book offers a remarkably sustained and for the most part convincing demonstration of what Zitser calls 'a heretofore neglected aspect of Petrine political theology' (p. 169). It is a study which all students of Peter and his period will neglect at their peril. * Journal of European Studies *Some of the strangest and most puzzling aspects of the reign of Peter the Great of Russia involve the play armies, mock religious processions, and other carnivalesque spectacles staged at the royal court throughout Peter's long reign.... Zitser argues that the activities of institutions such as the Most Comical All-Drunken Council were crucial elements in an attempt to elevate the tsar's persona above court factions and clan politics, as well as to establish his domination over ecclesiastical affairs. Zitser focuses his attention on the language used by the tsar and his entourage to transform a medieval Muscovy into a modern, imperial Russia, while also emphasizing the connections of the spectacles and rhetoric with the pan-European baroque court culture of early modern Europe. * Choice *Zitser's study is based on a range of sources impressive for both its variety and breadth: hitherto unprocessed personal and state archives; dispatches and accounts of foreign diplomats; publications of official government papers; monographic studies in many languages; contemporary engravings and illustrations. All the forms of evidence, facts, and events are subjected to thorough-going analysis in order to reveal their communicative and symbolic content.... Zitser's book is extraordinarily interesting and results in original reflections about the reign of Peter I and his contemporary cultural world. * The New Review/Novyi Zhurnal *Ernest Zitser has produced an innovative new study of the transformation of political discourse during the reign of Peter the Great... Zitser's study relies on the personal letters of Peter the Great, eyewitness accounts, official administrative documents, and visual representations, such as engravings, paintings, and drawings. These rich sources allow Zitser to present a more nuanced understanding of Petrine political discourse and the use of 'self-conscious and ironic wordplay' by Peter and his courtiers. The result is a fascinating, well-written, creative new interpretation of Peter's parodies and spectacles, one that is both accessible to an undergraduate audience and essential reading for Russian history scholars. * Russian Review *The Transfigured Kingdom... is a highly original effort to decrypt the coded messages conveyed by ceremonial events at Peter's court.... Ernest Zitser takes us on an enjoyable romp through the arcane mysteries of Imperial merrymaking. * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisIn Trading Places, Madeleine Dobie explores the place of the colonial world in the culture of the French Enlightenment. She shows that until a turning point in the late 1760s questions of colonization and slavery occupied a very marginal position in literature, philosophy, and material and visual culture. In an exploration of the causes and modalities of this silence, Dobie traces the displacement of colonial questions onto two more familiarand less ethically challengingaspects of Enlightenment thought: exoticization of the Orient and fascination with indigenous Amerindian cultures. Expanding the critical analysis of the cultural imprint of colonization to encompass commodities as well as texts, Dobie considers how tropical raw materials were integrated into French material culture. In an original exploration of the textile and furniture industries Dobie considers consumer goods both as sites of representation and as vestiges of the labor of the enslaved. Turning to the closiTrade Review"Trading Places is both hugely ambitious and carried off brilliantly. Madeleine Dobie shows how the theme of slavery is displaced into an Orientalist context and explains why Atlantic slavery was unrepresentable until the 1770s, when economic theories were developed to frame it in acceptable ways. By going beyond text and image to explore the material culture of textiles and furnishings, Dobie demonstrates that cultural studies can be both historical and humane."—Dena Goodman, University of Michigan, author of Becoming a Woman in the Age of Letters"Trading Places deals with an epochal cultural repression—the absence, in the early period of French colonialism, of depictions of conquest and its consequences. Madeleine Dobie reads this absence through the contradictions, displacements, denegations, and maskings that surround its seeming silence. Trading Places restores a fundamental element to French literary history, and to the history of colonialism's economic and social effects and its material culture. It helps us to understand economic, geopolitical, and racial domination in a period when such domination suppressed its own representations. This is a pathbreaking book of literary, cultural, and historical analysis."—Richard Terdiman, University of California, Santa CruzTable of ContentsIntroduction: Trading PlacesPart I: East Meets West 1. Reorienting Slavery 2. Oriental Veneers 3. The "Fabric of Two Worlds"Part II: Savages and Slaves 4. The Trope of Colonial Encounter 5. Slaves and the Noble SavagePart III: Liberty, Equality, Economy 6. Colonial Political Economy 7. Economic SentimentsConclusion: Slavery and Postcolonial MemoryAppendix: The Colonies and Slavery in Eighteenth-Century French Literature Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisGenerously illustrated with examples of this imperialist iconography, Sessions's work connects a wide-ranging culture of empire to specific policies of colonization during a pivotal period in the genesis of modern...Trade ReviewJennifer E. Sessions argues that the contested political culture of the post-revolutionary period was at the origins of French Algeria. The dualism that structures the book's title, By Sword and Plow, frames an alternative narrative of nineteenth-century French history. Sessions presents the conquest and settlement of Algeria as one of the nineteenth century’s major events, one in which issues of sovereignty, citizenship, and political power were played out. This book will be read with fascination by readers with widely different interests. * Journal of Modern History *Sessions offers up a fine and illuminating study of the early years of Algérie française and makes an important contribution to the history of nineteenth-century political culture.... By Sword and Plow is an impressive, highly readable, and meticulously-researched piece of scholarship that deserves the attention of all historians of France overseas and France in the first half of the nineteenth century.... It shows French imperialism in a new and (sometimes radically) different light. -- John Strachan * H-France Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Cultural Origins of French AlgeriaPart I: By the Sword 1. A Tale of Two Despots: The Invasion of Algeria and the Revolution of 1830 2. Empire of Merit: The July Monarchy and the Algerian War 3. The Blood of Brothers: Bonapartism and the Popular Culture of ConquestPart II. By the Plow 4. The Empire of Virtue: Colonialism in the Age of Abolition 5. Selling Algeria: Speculation and the Colonial Landscape 6. Settling Algeria: Labor, Emigration, and CitizenshipConclusion: Politics and Empire in Nineteenth-Century FranceSelected Bibliography of Primary Sources Index

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Book SynopsisBruce Grant explores the long relationship between Russia and the Caucasus and the means by which sovereignty has been exercised in this contested area.Trade ReviewThe Captive and the Gift is one of a very few recent anthropological works that explores the gift as a form of state ideology. History, where the study of gift giving is a burgeoning field, has produced a considerable body of work on gift practices in state and empire building, interstate relations, and diplomacy. The main contribution of Grant's rich and innovative research on Russian and Soviet rule in the Caucasus is to shift the scale radically and discuss how empire 'works through altruism and not just force’ and, specifically, how the taking of lives, lands, and resources was narrated as forms of imperial giving. -- Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov * Slavic Review *Grant draws on several centuries of historical writing, literature, political commentary, and film to explore both Russian claims about the implications of their 'gift of empire' as well as efforts from the peoples of the Caucasus to contest this binding generosity. He even interviews contemporary academics and cultural figures in Moscow and Baku and shares experiences from life in a small Azerbaijani village. -- Austin Jersild * Russian Review *This is an important and groundbreaking book, and it is especially necessary at this time of ongoing tension between Russia and the Caucasus. Grant squarely challenges the dangerous and persistent stereotypes of the Caucasus as 'naturally' criminal, arguing that idioms and practices of violence between Russia and the Caucasus have developed over time in a mutually constituted relationship. He also forces us to question the destructive potential of gifts of noble self-sacrifice given to unwilling subjects, wherever they occur. As an interdisciplinary and open-ended work, it invites discussion and exploration, and it will be of interest to scholars across literature and the social sciences as well as to graduate students in the Slavic fields. -- Anna C. Oldfield * Slavic and East European Journal *Table of Contents1. Promethean Beginnings2. Histories of Encounter, Raidings, and Trade3. Noble Giving, Noble Taking4. Rites of Encounter: Brides, Brigands, and Fire Bringers5. Captive Russians6. Caucasian Reflections7. From Prometheus to the PresentGlossary References Index

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Book SynopsisAfter World War II, a powerful conviction took hold among American intellectuals and policymakers: that the United States could profoundly accelerate and ultimately direct the development of the decolonizing world, serving as a modernizing force around the globe. By accelerating economic growth, promoting agricultural expansion, and encouraging the rise of enlightened elites, they hoped to link development with security, preventing revolutions and rapidly creating liberal, capitalist states. In The Right Kind of Revolution, Michael E. Latham explores the role of modernization and development in U.S. foreign policy from the early Cold War through the present.The modernization project rarely went as its architects anticipated. Nationalist leaders in postcolonial states such as India, Ghana, and Egypt pursued their own independent visions of development. Attempts to promote technological solutions to development problems also created unintended consequences by increasing Trade ReviewThe Right Kind of Revolution opens a window on the variety of new scholarship on the issue in this excellent primer on the place of modernization in U.S. foreign relations. Writing with clarity and verve, Latham makes complicated topics accessible and diverse situations comparable. His précis of the origins of modernization theory and its rapid spread across the American social sciences is fluent and does much to explicate why the concepted seemed like an attractive solution to so many problems for policymakers and scholars alike. He makes clear that modernization was not just an activity conducted by the American state. It had considerable support from a collection of nongovernmental advocates that included universities, foundations, and missionary groups. Latham also gives room to the governments and leaders of those countries the United States sought to modernize, reminding readers of their agency. Latham has captured and synthesized the fresh and exciting scholarship on this rich issue while adding to it in a manner accessible to students and stimulating for scholars. -- David Ekbladh * American Historical Review *Michael E. Latham has provided a very interesting and useful synthesis of the rise and decline (and eventual reappearance) of modernization theory in the United States, exploring both its intellectual roots and its deep connections to the country's foreign policy. -- Michele Alacevich * Technology and Culture *Michael Latham's The Right Kind of Revolution will for the foreseeable future be the textbook synthesis on the impact of ideas of modernization on American foreign affairs during the twentieth century.... It toggles artfully between discussions of U.S. foreign policy in the Global South, how ideas of modernization were used both to understand and to guide those policies, and how these policies and ideas were received by political elites in target countries. -- Nils Gilman * H-Diplo Roundtable Reviews *Since the end of the Cold War there has been an enormous increase in scholarship by historians of U.S. foreign relations on American efforts to 'modernize' or develop the poorest areas of the world after World War II. Michael E. Latham has been at the forefront of this research.... This is an exceptionally well-written synthesis that will become a staple in college and graduate classrooms for years to come.... Latham has provided an excellent book on an important topic. * Journal of American History *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Setting the Foundations: Imperial Ideals, Global War, and Decolonization 2. Take-Off: Modernization and Cold War America 3. Nationalist Encounters: Nehru's India, Nasser's Egypt, and Nkrumah's Ghana 4. Technocratic Faith: From Birth Control to the Green Revolution 5. Counterinsurgency and Repression: Guatemala, South Vietnam, and Iran 6. Modernization under Fire: Alternative Paradigms, Sustainable Development, and the Neoliberal Turn 7. The Ghosts of Modernization: From Cold War Victory to Afghanistan and IraqBibliography Index

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Book SynopsisOverextension is the common pitfall of empires. Why does it occur? What are the forces that cause the great powers of the industrial era to pursue aggressive foreign policies? Jack Snyder identifies recurrent myths of empire, describes the varieties of overextension to which they lead, and criticizes the traditional explanations offered by historians and political scientists.He tests three competing theoriesrealism, misperception, and domestic coalition politicsagainst five detailed case studies: early twentieth-century Germany, Japan in the interwar period, Great Britain in the Victorian era, the Soviet Union after World War II, and the United States during the Cold War. The resulting insights run counter to much that has been written about these apparently familiar instances of empire building.Trade ReviewMyths of Empire offers the best-developed theory to date of the domestic sources of international conflict and security policy.... Snyder has taken a major step toward ending the theoretical impoverishment of the study of the domestic sources of international conflict. * American Political Science Review *In support of his case, Snyder draws upon recent research into the determinant of foreign policy of the leading powers since the mid-19th century.... Historians and still more international relations specialists will find much of interest in this analysis. * Times Higher Education Supplement *Table of Contents1. The Myth of Security through Expansion2. Three Theories of Overexpansion3. Germany and the Pattern of Late Development4. Japan's Bid for Autarky5. Social Imperialism in Victorian Britain6. Soviet Politics and Strategic Learning7. America’s Cold War Consensus8. Overexpansion: Origins and AntidotesIndex

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Book SynopsisThis book presents a new perspective on colonialism in Africa. Drawing on work from a variety of subjects and disciplines – from the ancient Mediterranean to colonial Spain, and from anthropology to psychology – the author argues that colonialism in Africa needs to be understood through the medium of writing and the particular world it belonged to. Focusing on the LoDagaa of northern Ghana and their relationship with British colonialism, Hawkins describes colonialism as an encounter between a world of experience – a world of knowledge, practice, and speech – and 'the world on paper' – a world of writing, rules, and a linear concept of history. The various ways in which 'the world on paper' affected the LoDagaa are examined thematically. The first four chapters explore how writing imposed a form of historical consciousness on different aspects of LoDagaa culture – identity, politics, and religion – that was alien to them. The second half of t

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Book SynopsisWho has the more legitimate claim to land, settlers who occupy and improve it with their labour, or landlords who claim ownership on the basis of imperial grants? This question of property rights, and their construction, was at the heart of rural protest on Prince Edward Island for a century. Tenants resisted landlord claims by squatting and refusing to pay rent. They fought for their vision of a just rural order through petitions, meetings, rallies, electoral campaigns, and direct action. Landlords responded with their own collective action to protect their interests. In Rural Protest on Prince Edward Island Rusty Bittermann examines this conflict and the dynamic of rural protest on the Island from its establishment as a British colony in the 1760s to the early 1840s.The focus of Bittermann's study is the remarkable mass movement known as the Escheat movement, which emerged in the 1830s in the context of growing popular challenges elsewhere in the Atlantic Worl

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Book SynopsisAn exploration of the military and political mobilization of popular sectors of Puerto Rican society as the island transitioned from Spanish to U.S. imperial rule. Trade Review“One of this book’s greatest merits is that it eludes the identitarian Manicheism that has weakened much of Puerto Rican historiography since the U.S. invasion in 1898 and whose interpretive key is the confrontation between master and subject. Instead, the author travels through the quicksand—misunderstood or discarded by certain patriotic morals—of 'colonial collaborations,' contact zones between the inside of what is indigenous and the foreign yet indispensable outside of the empire.”—Silvia Álvarez Curbelo, Reviews in American History"Soldiers of the Nation offers an important new history of Puerto Rico and its relationship with the United States."—Robert C. McGreevey, Journal of American History"Soldiers of the Nation is a well-written, tightly argued work of social history that constitutes a valuable contribution. The book should be required reading not only for students of Puerto Rican and American military history, but also for scholars in related fields such as colonialism and decolonization, diplomatic history, and the interrelationship between the military and society. It is a worthy addition to the University of Nebraska’s Studies in War, Society, and the Military publications."—Prisco Hernández-Ríos, Journal of Military History“Sheds light on the relationship between militarism and society and the attempt to culminate the political status of Puerto Rico after the approval of the Constitution of the Commonwealth.”—Carlos I. Hernández, Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies“A clear-eyed scholarly analysis of the complex entanglements binding Puerto Ricans and Latinas/os with militaries and militarism. . . . Both provocative and refreshing. . . . [This book offers us] a roadmap for understanding how we have arrived at this place of continued reliance on the military as a vehicle for social mobility and social standing that is increasingly hard to achieve. It is also an invitation to reflect on the limits and costs of this kind of inclusion.”—Gina Pérez, Latino Studies"This study has much to recommend it. Franqui’s archival research is exemplary, as evidenced by the wealth of materials gleaned from rarely cited collections on the island and mainland. Above all, he is successful in demonstrating the extent to which military service shaped modern Puerto Rico. Soldiers of the Nation should be of interest to scholars of the island, and colonial military service more broadly."—Micah W. Wright, H-War“Soldiers of the Nation offers new and refreshing perspectives on the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States, presenting a strong case for military service as a pathway toward both establishing Puerto Rican civic identity and as part of a broader process of Americanizing the population. In the process, Harry Franqui-Rivera establishes a new standard for examining civil-military relations. . . . Soldiers of the Nation is the next stage in better understanding the American military as an agent of social transformation and its immediate and close relationship to the Puerto Rican people—an immediate classic.”—Bobby Wintermute, co-host of New Books in Military History and author of Public Health and the U.S. Military: A History of the Army Medical Department, 1818–1917"Franqui-Rivera . . . has written the most useful military history of Puerto Rico in English, while discussing the importance of military service to the evolution of a Puerto Rican national identity. . . . A good read for anyone interested in the history of modern Puerto Rico, American colonial policy, or national military policy."—A. A. Nofi, Strategy Page"A superb text, solidly researched, and painstakingly argued. . . . [Franqui-Rivera] has shown that it is possible to write a history of the paradoxical effects of the military and modernity projects without negating, or being apologetic of, the imperial rule of the United States over Puerto Rico. Scholars in Latin American and Caribbean history/studies, geographies with difficult and tense entanglements with the United States and its military apparatuses, would benefit greatly from his book."—Antonio Hernández-Matos, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies“Soldiers of the Nation is the first book to make a coherent case for the significance of military bodies in the formation of Puerto Rico’s colonial history. The book’s real contribution is to show how, with every war and military mobilization, the United States and Puerto Rico wove a complex web of connections, agreements, and participatory hierarchies. Franqui-Rivera helps us understand how the class contradictions that Puerto Rican men in the military brought to anticolonial politics helped seal Puerto Rico’s fate in the mid-twentieth century.”—Aldo Lauria-Santiago, professor of history at Rutgers University and author of To Rise in Darkness: Revolution, Repression, and Memory in El Salvador Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Birth of a Nation: A Labor of Thirty Years, 1868–1898 2. Puerto Rican a la Americana: A Hearts and Minds Campaign, 1898–1914 3. A New Day Has Dawned: World War I and Mobilization of the Peasant 4. War against the Yankees! Prelude to the Battle over Modern Puerto Rico 5. Education, Industrialization, and Decolonization: The Battlefields of World War II 6. Fighting for the “Nation”? War at Home and Abroad Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExplores the impact of natural and man-made disasters in the turn-of-the-century French Caribbean, examining the social, economic, and political implications of shared citizenship in times of civil unrest.Trade Review"Church’s study is a nuanced and rich addition to a growing body of work that demonstrates the relationship between nature- and human-induced disasters set against the backdrop of government management."—Caroline Grego, Environmental History"Christopher M. Church shows us that disasters do indeed reveal some significant facts about the risks and stresses of life in the French colonial Caribbean. . . . Church's book is well-researched, highly detailed, and tightly argued using a wide range of primary sources, including some illuminating statistical data. It introduces new insight into the story of the French Caribbean by shifting the focus towards the human/nature interaction while also showing how environmental concerns were deeply intertwined with political economy, race, and colonial/metropolitan relationships. . . . The book makes a significant historiographical intervention at the intersection of French colonial studies and environmental studies and should become a model for future work in this area."—Jeffrey H. Jackson, H-France Review"This well-researched book moves beyond being simply an analysis of the issues surrounding race, citizenship, and colonialism by incorporating the theoretical and methodological models of disaster studies. . . . Scholars interested in historical disasters will find this work useful for its comparative utility, especially if viewed alongside studies about the effects of disaster and colonialism in other parts of the world."—Sherry Johnson, Journal of Interdisciplinary History"Paradise Destroyed: Catastrophe and Citizenship in the French Caribbean, constitutes a valuable addition to considerations on the history of disasters, both natural and man-made, in the French Antilles during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. . . . Thanks to Church's original, insightful, and well-argued new work, researchers can now consider France's old colonies in the Caribbean, with their environmental disasters, civil discord, and political intrigue, as influencing factors in historical and ideological developments within the metropole. With its Francophone focus, this new work situates itself as an innovative contribution to the burgeoning field of Postcolonial Ecocriticism, which has, heretofore, concentrated primarily on an Anglophone context. . . . Church keeps his content clear and coherent, making it accessible to scholars in a broad range of fields, including Caribbean History, Environmental Studies, Francophone Postcolonial Studies, and Political Science."—Shanaaz Mohammed, Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies"Church demonstrates that, from 1870 to 1902, the Third Republic's responses to cataclysmic natural calamities,man-made catastrophes, and subsequent civil unrests led to the reshaping of its political and economic relationship with these islands that were already on the brink of economic disaster due to a failing sugar industry."—Séverine Bates, French Review“With a timely focus on environmental disaster and its political ramifications, Christopher Church has given us a highly original and multidisciplinary view of an understudied period in Caribbean history.”—David Geggus, professor of history at the University of Florida and editor and translator of The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History “Christopher M. Church offers compelling short narratives of the various disasters that struck the colonies, and his analysis of the politics of relief is sophisticated and informative. . . . It is a book that will interest scholars in a wide range of fields, including French imperial studies and Caribbean history. It is also a welcome and significant contribution to the history of disasters.”—Matthew Mulcahy, professor of history at Loyola University at Maryland and author of Hubs of Empire: The Southeastern Lowcountry and British Caribbean “Christopher Church offers a richly researched, well-told, and insightful account of the political, economic, and social impact of natural disaster in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French Antilles, profoundly deepening our understanding of these societies.”—Laurent Dubois, Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History at Duke University and author of Haiti: The Aftershocks of History “Trouble in paradise! In this engaging, innovative, and well-researched study, Christopher Church uses the history of disasters to explore interactions between environmental, colonial, and political history in the French West Indies. . . . Paradise Destroyed adds an important new dimension to the history of modern empire, showing how France’s ‘colonies of citizens’ could be both exotic and familiar, colonial and French at the same time.”—Tyler Stovall, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Transnational France: The Modern History of a Universal NationTable of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Maps List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction: Colonialism, Catastrophe, and National Integration 1. French Race, Tropical Space: The French Caribbean during the Third Republic 2. The Language of Citizenship: Compatriotism and the Great Antillean Fires of 1890 3. The Calculus of Disaster: Sugar and the Hurricane of 18 August 1891 4. The Political Summation: Incendiarism, Civil Unrest, and Legislative Catastrophe at the Turn of the Century 5. Marianne Decapitated: The 1902 Eruption of Mount Pelée Epilogue: National Identity and Integration after the First World War Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe neighboring north Indian districts of Jaipur and Ajmer are identical in language, geography, and religious and caste demography. But when the famous Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was destroyed in 1992, Jaipur burned while Ajmer remained peaceful; when the state clashed over low-caste affirmative action quotas in 2008, Ajmer''s residents rioted while Jaipur''s citizens stayed calm. What explains these divergent patterns of ethnic conflict across multiethnic states? Using archival research and elite interviews in five case studies spanning north, south, and east India, as well as a quantitative analysis of 589 districts, Ajay Verghese shows that the legacies of British colonialism drive contemporary conflict.Because India served as a model for British colonial expansion into parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, this project links Indian ethnic conflict to violent outcomes across an array of multiethnic states, including cases as diverse as Nigeria and Malaysia. The Colonial OriTrade Review"This is a truly excellent and original book, deeply researched, carefully argued, and offering a powerful new understanding of caste and religious cleavages and violence in India. Unlike most previous studies, Verghese combines religious and caste violence within a single framework. A model book for comparative historical research in political science." -- David D. Laitin, Watkins Professor of Political Science * Stanford University *"This outstanding book is a model of both theory generation and theory testing. Verghese offers fresh hypotheses about the sources of different types of ethnic violence across India, which he rigorously evaluates using a sophisticated comparative case study design that is supplemented by a meaningful statistical test. A major contribution to our understanding of colonialism and ethnic violence." -- James Mahoney * Northwestern University *"In this clearly written and closely argued work, Verghese proposes that religious or communal violence is associated with the former princely states, while tribal and caste violence is associated with British colonial rule. This important book challenges prevailing ideas about ethnic violence, and will further research on India and other formerly British colonial states." -- Karen Leonard * UC Irvine *"In this bold and innovative analysis, Verghese argues that the seemingly endemic problem of ethno-religious violence in India is fundamentally shaped by the different historical traditions of governance and sovereignty in different parts of the country. The breadth and historical depth of data and context makes this a compelling contribution to the literature." -- Thomas Blom Hansen, Center for South Asia * Stanford University *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThis chapter lays out the puzzle driving this book: why does ethnic violence in multi-ethnic states revolve around one identity rather than another? The origins of patterns of ethnic conflict in India, one of the most diverse countries in the world, lie in the era of British colonialism. Three-fourths of India's population was governed by colonial officials, but the remainder lived under largely autonomous native 'princes'. These two sets of rulers had different ways of thinking about ethnicity, stratifying ethnic groups, and their disparate policies led to different fault lines of conflict. Former British provinces experience more caste and tribal violence in contemporary India, but former princely states experience more religious conflict. This chapter details the book's multi-method research design, and concludes by discussing how this project contributes to important social science debates on Hindu-Muslim riots, ethnic salience, and the impact of colonialism on ethnic violence. 1Colonialism, Institutions, and Ethnic Violence in India chapter abstractThis chapter offers a new interpretation of British Indian history and its effect on modern ethnic conflict. It begins with a discussion of pre-colonial India, where religious conflict occurred extensively but caste and tribal violence was less prevalent. British influence began in the 17th century and increased until the Rebellion of 1857, a revolt that left a quarter of the population under the control of native princes. British administrators promoted caste as the central organizing principle of their territories, but princes continued to emphasize religion. These rulers then instituted different policies of ethnic stratification: the British favored high castes, discriminated against low castes and tribals, but protected religious minorities. Princes did the opposite: they favored coreligionists, discriminated against non-coreligionists, but protected low castes and adivasis. Colonial patterns of violence were reinforced in post-independence India through formal and informal institutions, as well as the failure of reform efforts. 2Violence in North India: Jaipur and Ajmer chapter abstractThis chapter examines ethnic conflict in a controlled historical comparison of Jaipur and Ajmer districts in the north Indian state of Rajasthan. These two areas are similar except for their colonial history: Jaipur was ruled by a Hindu dynasty whereas Ajmer came under British control. Drawing on primary source research from a variety of archives, this chapter begins by showing that the Hindu rajas of Jaipur discriminated against Muslims, creating a long legacy of religious violence, but protected low castes and adivasis, stunting the development of caste and tribal conflict. In Ajmer, on the other hand, discriminatory British policies against low castes and tribals generated conflict in the countryside, but protective policies for religious minorities prevented Hindu-Muslim discord. Utilizing elite interviews and a variety of data sources on local conflict, this chapter then shows that this pattern of violence became embedded in formal and informal institutions in modern Rajasthan. 3Violence in South India: Malabar and Travancore chapter abstractThis chapter examines ethnic conflict in a controlled historical comparison from the south Indian state of Kerala. The northern region of Malabar, which came under British rule, is compared with the southern princely kingdom of Travancore. This comparison has strong analytical leverage because there is evidence that the British wanted to conquer all of Kerala, but – for various historical reasons – they were unable to annex the south. Although Kerala is not an extremely violent state, this chapter highlights that even in this largely tranquil territory there is a pattern of ethnic discord that stems from the colonial era. British rule in Malabar created a long history of caste antagonism, but princely rule in Travancore generated communal conflict among the state's Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. Kerala is also a noteworthy case because post-colonial reforms here, unlike elsewhere in India, successfully reduced the total amount of ethnic violence in the state. 4Explaining Violence in East India: Bastar chapter abstractThis chapter examines the largest deviant case for the theory of ethnic violence proposed in this book: the tiny Hindu kingdom of Bastar, located in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh. Since the mid-19th century, this remote princely state has been the bloodiest battleground for tribal violence in India. Drawing on a variety of archival sources, this chapter shows that tribal rebellions began in Bastar precisely because the British interfered repeatedly in the politics of the kingdom, a level of intervention that was unique compared to other princely states in India. After independence, the post-colonial government continued most of the same British policies that had initially sparked tribal rebellion. This led to the extraordinary growth of the adivasi-led Naxalite movement in the region. This chapter therefore confirms one of the major arguments of this book: wherever the British ruled, tribal revolts subsequently followed. 5Patterns of Ethnic Violence Across Contemporary India chapter abstractThis chapter builds on the qualitative research from Chapters 2-4 by presenting the results of a quantitative study of colonialism and ethnic violence across 589 contemporary Indian districts. This large-n analysis draws on new sources of data on ethnic conflict in India, as well as information aggregated from various British government reports, the census, and private statistical firms. This study shows that former British districts experience significantly more caste and tribal violence in contemporary India, but former princely districts experience significantly more religious conflict. These results confirm that the patterns of ethnic violence evident at the case study level are also visible across the entire country. These results are significant even when controlling for a number of alternative explanations of violence that focus on poverty, geography, and demographic factors. They are also sensitive to robustness checks for endogeneity concerns: a propensity score matching design and an instrumental variable analysis. 6The Indian Model of Colonialism chapter abstractThis chapter uses colonialism in India as a foundation for examining patterns of ethnic conflict in three other British post-colonial states: Myanmar, Malaysia, and Nigeria. While the Rebellion of 1857 upended British plans to control the entire subcontinent, colonial officials over time came to realize the value of combining direct and indirect rule in a colony, most of all because it prevented further uprisings. Administrators began extoling the virtues of this 'Indian model' of colonialism. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the British exported this model to other territories across the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. In Burma, Malaya, and Nigeria, British officials shared power with the sawbwa, sultans, and emirs. Through analyzing these cases, this chapter shows that the exporting of the Indian model led to discernible patterns of ethnic conflict abroad, patterns that are still evident in the contemporary politics of these three countries. Conclusion chapter abstractThis chapter offers a complete summary of the book, its relevance for several academic debates within the social sciences, and some social policy implications. It first recaps the book's central argument, and then details the extensive archival and interview evidence marshalled in support of this theory in Chapters 2-4. Former British provinces like Ajmer and Malabar primarily experience caste and tribal violence today, but former princely states like Jaipur and Travancore tend to experience religious conflict. The statistical analysis in Chapter 5 showed that these patterns of violence are evident across 589 contemporary Indian districts, and the comparative analysis in Chapter 6 highlighted that India served as a model for the colonization of other states in Asia and Africa. This chapter concludes by detailing the contributions this project makes to several academic debates – above all, this book emphasizes the key role of historical legacies in driving modern ethnic violence.

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Book SynopsisThe neighboring north Indian districts of Jaipur and Ajmer are identical in language, geography, and religious and caste demography. But when the famous Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was destroyed in 1992, Jaipur burned while Ajmer remained peaceful; when the state clashed over low-caste affirmative action quotas in 2008, Ajmer''s residents rioted while Jaipur''s citizens stayed calm. What explains these divergent patterns of ethnic conflict across multiethnic states? Using archival research and elite interviews in five case studies spanning north, south, and east India, as well as a quantitative analysis of 589 districts, Ajay Verghese shows that the legacies of British colonialism drive contemporary conflict.Because India served as a model for British colonial expansion into parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, this project links Indian ethnic conflict to violent outcomes across an array of multiethnic states, including cases as diverse as Nigeria and Malaysia. The Colonial OriTrade Review"This is a truly excellent and original book, deeply researched, carefully argued, and offering a powerful new understanding of caste and religious cleavages and violence in India. Unlike most previous studies, Verghese combines religious and caste violence within a single framework. A model book for comparative historical research in political science." -- David D. Laitin, Watkins Professor of Political Science * Stanford University *"This outstanding book is a model of both theory generation and theory testing. Verghese offers fresh hypotheses about the sources of different types of ethnic violence across India, which he rigorously evaluates using a sophisticated comparative case study design that is supplemented by a meaningful statistical test. A major contribution to our understanding of colonialism and ethnic violence." -- James Mahoney * Northwestern University *"In this clearly written and closely argued work, Verghese proposes that religious or communal violence is associated with the former princely states, while tribal and caste violence is associated with British colonial rule. This important book challenges prevailing ideas about ethnic violence, and will further research on India and other formerly British colonial states." -- Karen Leonard * UC Irvine *"In this bold and innovative analysis, Verghese argues that the seemingly endemic problem of ethno-religious violence in India is fundamentally shaped by the different historical traditions of governance and sovereignty in different parts of the country. The breadth and historical depth of data and context makes this a compelling contribution to the literature." -- Thomas Blom Hansen, Center for South Asia * Stanford University *Table of ContentsContents and AbstractsIntroduction chapter abstractThis chapter lays out the puzzle driving this book: why does ethnic violence in multi-ethnic states revolve around one identity rather than another? The origins of patterns of ethnic conflict in India, one of the most diverse countries in the world, lie in the era of British colonialism. Three-fourths of India's population was governed by colonial officials, but the remainder lived under largely autonomous native 'princes'. These two sets of rulers had different ways of thinking about ethnicity, stratifying ethnic groups, and their disparate policies led to different fault lines of conflict. Former British provinces experience more caste and tribal violence in contemporary India, but former princely states experience more religious conflict. This chapter details the book's multi-method research design, and concludes by discussing how this project contributes to important social science debates on Hindu-Muslim riots, ethnic salience, and the impact of colonialism on ethnic violence. 1Colonialism, Institutions, and Ethnic Violence in India chapter abstractThis chapter offers a new interpretation of British Indian history and its effect on modern ethnic conflict. It begins with a discussion of pre-colonial India, where religious conflict occurred extensively but caste and tribal violence was less prevalent. British influence began in the 17th century and increased until the Rebellion of 1857, a revolt that left a quarter of the population under the control of native princes. British administrators promoted caste as the central organizing principle of their territories, but princes continued to emphasize religion. These rulers then instituted different policies of ethnic stratification: the British favored high castes, discriminated against low castes and tribals, but protected religious minorities. Princes did the opposite: they favored coreligionists, discriminated against non-coreligionists, but protected low castes and adivasis. Colonial patterns of violence were reinforced in post-independence India through formal and informal institutions, as well as the failure of reform efforts. 2Violence in North India: Jaipur and Ajmer chapter abstractThis chapter examines ethnic conflict in a controlled historical comparison of Jaipur and Ajmer districts in the north Indian state of Rajasthan. These two areas are similar except for their colonial history: Jaipur was ruled by a Hindu dynasty whereas Ajmer came under British control. Drawing on primary source research from a variety of archives, this chapter begins by showing that the Hindu rajas of Jaipur discriminated against Muslims, creating a long legacy of religious violence, but protected low castes and adivasis, stunting the development of caste and tribal conflict. In Ajmer, on the other hand, discriminatory British policies against low castes and tribals generated conflict in the countryside, but protective policies for religious minorities prevented Hindu-Muslim discord. Utilizing elite interviews and a variety of data sources on local conflict, this chapter then shows that this pattern of violence became embedded in formal and informal institutions in modern Rajasthan. 3Violence in South India: Malabar and Travancore chapter abstractThis chapter examines ethnic conflict in a controlled historical comparison from the south Indian state of Kerala. The northern region of Malabar, which came under British rule, is compared with the southern princely kingdom of Travancore. This comparison has strong analytical leverage because there is evidence that the British wanted to conquer all of Kerala, but – for various historical reasons – they were unable to annex the south. Although Kerala is not an extremely violent state, this chapter highlights that even in this largely tranquil territory there is a pattern of ethnic discord that stems from the colonial era. British rule in Malabar created a long history of caste antagonism, but princely rule in Travancore generated communal conflict among the state's Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. Kerala is also a noteworthy case because post-colonial reforms here, unlike elsewhere in India, successfully reduced the total amount of ethnic violence in the state. 4Explaining Violence in East India: Bastar chapter abstractThis chapter examines the largest deviant case for the theory of ethnic violence proposed in this book: the tiny Hindu kingdom of Bastar, located in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh. Since the mid-19th century, this remote princely state has been the bloodiest battleground for tribal violence in India. Drawing on a variety of archival sources, this chapter shows that tribal rebellions began in Bastar precisely because the British interfered repeatedly in the politics of the kingdom, a level of intervention that was unique compared to other princely states in India. After independence, the post-colonial government continued most of the same British policies that had initially sparked tribal rebellion. This led to the extraordinary growth of the adivasi-led Naxalite movement in the region. This chapter therefore confirms one of the major arguments of this book: wherever the British ruled, tribal revolts subsequently followed. 5Patterns of Ethnic Violence Across Contemporary India chapter abstractThis chapter builds on the qualitative research from Chapters 2-4 by presenting the results of a quantitative study of colonialism and ethnic violence across 589 contemporary Indian districts. This large-n analysis draws on new sources of data on ethnic conflict in India, as well as information aggregated from various British government reports, the census, and private statistical firms. This study shows that former British districts experience significantly more caste and tribal violence in contemporary India, but former princely districts experience significantly more religious conflict. These results confirm that the patterns of ethnic violence evident at the case study level are also visible across the entire country. These results are significant even when controlling for a number of alternative explanations of violence that focus on poverty, geography, and demographic factors. They are also sensitive to robustness checks for endogeneity concerns: a propensity score matching design and an instrumental variable analysis. 6The Indian Model of Colonialism chapter abstractThis chapter uses colonialism in India as a foundation for examining patterns of ethnic conflict in three other British post-colonial states: Myanmar, Malaysia, and Nigeria. While the Rebellion of 1857 upended British plans to control the entire subcontinent, colonial officials over time came to realize the value of combining direct and indirect rule in a colony, most of all because it prevented further uprisings. Administrators began extoling the virtues of this 'Indian model' of colonialism. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the British exported this model to other territories across the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. In Burma, Malaya, and Nigeria, British officials shared power with the sawbwa, sultans, and emirs. Through analyzing these cases, this chapter shows that the exporting of the Indian model led to discernible patterns of ethnic conflict abroad, patterns that are still evident in the contemporary politics of these three countries. Conclusion chapter abstractThis chapter offers a complete summary of the book, its relevance for several academic debates within the social sciences, and some social policy implications. It first recaps the book's central argument, and then details the extensive archival and interview evidence marshalled in support of this theory in Chapters 2-4. Former British provinces like Ajmer and Malabar primarily experience caste and tribal violence today, but former princely states like Jaipur and Travancore tend to experience religious conflict. The statistical analysis in Chapter 5 showed that these patterns of violence are evident across 589 contemporary Indian districts, and the comparative analysis in Chapter 6 highlighted that India served as a model for the colonization of other states in Asia and Africa. This chapter concludes by detailing the contributions this project makes to several academic debates – above all, this book emphasizes the key role of historical legacies in driving modern ethnic violence.

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Book SynopsisGuatemala emerged from the clash between Spanish invaders and Maya cultures that began five centuries ago. The conquest of these ‘rich and strange lands’, as Hernán Cortés called them, and their ‘many different peoples’ was brutal and prolonged. This book examines the ramifications of Spanish intrusion, especially Maya resistance to it.Trade ReviewDrawn from several decades of research in both Maya and Spanish sources, Strange Lands and Different Peoples brings us a sensitive and beautifully written account of the Spanish conquest and colonization of Guatemala and its indigenous people. The authors do a splendid job of explaining not only the conquest period but also the survival of Maya people and their culture."" - Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., author of A Short History of Guatemala and Central America: A Nation Divided

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Book SynopsisIn this groundbreaking work, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall studies Louisiana's creole slave community during the eighteenth century, focusing on the slaves' African origins, the evolution of their own language and culture, and the role they played in the formation of the broader society, economy, and culture of the region.

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisThe 1783 Treaty of Paris, which officially recognized the United States as a sovereign republic, also doubled the territorial girth of the original thirteen colonies. The fledgling nation now stretched from the coast of Maine to the Mississippi River and up to the Great Lakes. With this dramatic expansion, argues author Bethel Saler, the United States simultaneously became a postcolonial republic and gained a domestic empire. The competing demands of governing an empire and a republic inevitably collided in the early American West. The Settlers'' Empire traces the first federal endeavor to build states wholesale out of the Northwest Territory, a process that relied on overlapping colonial rule over Euro-American settlers and the multiple Indian nations in the territory. These entwined administrations involved both formal institution building and the articulation of dominant cultural customs that, in turn, served also to establish boundaries of citizenship and racial differencTrade Review"From its inception, the United States has been both a settler republic and a continental empire, and this intriguing combination provides the departure point of Bethel Saler's ambitious, careful, and nuanced book. The Settlers' Empire moves seamlessly between culture and politics to reveal a complicated world of Anglo American settlers, Indian peoples, French habitants, and Christian missionaries." * Richard White, Stanford University *"The Settlers' Empire richly reveals the development of the United States through westward settlement and the formation of new territories. Best of all, Bethel Saler nicely illuminates the complex conflicts of a multicultural world uneasily absorbed by the expanding United States." * Alan Taylor, author of The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 *"Bethel Saler's authoritative study of the origins of Wisconsin is an important contribution to the history of state-building. Informed by work on postcolonialism and the informal structures of empire, Saler expertly narrates a contingent, contested, and multidimensional story of possession that is as much about family, race, religion, and commerce as it is about warfare and politics." * Andrew Cayton, Miami University *

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Book SynopsisFollowing the stories of families who built their lives and fortunes across the Atlantic Ocean, Intimate Bonds explores how households anchored the French empire and shaped the meanings of race, slavery, and gender in the early modern period. As race-based slavery became entrenched in French laws, all household members in the French Atlantic world —regardless of their status, gender, or race—negotiated increasingly stratified legal understandings of race and gender.Through her focus on household relationships, Jennifer L. Palmer reveals how intimacy not only led to the seemingly immutable hierarchies of the plantation system but also caused these hierarchies to collapse even before the age of Atlantic revolutions. Placing families at the center of the French Atlantic world, Palmer uses the concept of intimacy to illustrate how race, gender, and the law intersected to form a new worldview. Through analysis of personal, mercantile, and legal relationships, Trade Review"Intimate Bonds illuminates how slaves and free people of color challenged the hardening racial and social hierarchies of the eighteenth century. . . . The well-crafted blend of deep archival research and insightful prose makes Intimate Bonds a terrific addition to seminars on race, colonialism, and gender, as well as the Atlantic World, early America, early Latin America, and France." * Journal of Social History *"A striking and original study that will engage both scholars and students in its vivid exploration of families and people in eighteenth-century Atlantic France. Extensive and detailed archival research undergirds each narrative gem. The prose is simple and lively, hiding the author's hard work of empirically verifying familial and historical connections." * Sue Peabody, Washington State University *"Intimate Bonds is a deeply-researched book that offers an important intervention in the fields of early modern French and French Atlantic history. Analyzing a broader range of actors than previous historians, Jennifer L. Palmer sheds important new light on the contested, constructed, and shifting meanings of 'race' in the French Atlantic world." * Brett Rushforth, University of Oregon *

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Book SynopsisIn December 1788, in the northern Peruvian city of Trujillo, fifty-one-year-old Spanish Bishop Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón stood surrounded by twenty-four large wooden crates, each numbered and marked with its final destination of Madrid. The crates contained carefully preserved zoological, botanical, and mineral specimens collected from Trujillo''s steamy rainforests, agricultural valleys, rocky sierra, and coastal desert. To accompany this collection, the Bishop had also commissioned from Indian artisans nine volumes of hand-painted images portraying the people, plants, and animals of Trujillo. He imagined that the collection and the watercolors not only would contribute to his quest to study the native cultures of Northern Peru but also would supply valuable information for his plans to transform Trujillo into an orderly, profitable slice of the Spanish Empire.Based on intensive archival research in Peru, Spain, and Colombia and the unique visual dTrade Review"Astonishingly original and highly readable. With this ground-breaking study of the monumental work of Bishop Martínez Compañón, Emily Berquist Soule opens up a whole new world of research on the eighteenth century in Peruvian history. This is cultural, intellectual, and art historical writing at the very highest level." * Gary Urton, Harvard University *"A deeply researched, beautifully written account of a fascinating man. Bishop Martínez Compañón was a brilliant iconoclast who saw the need for change and did everything he possibly could to promote it. Emily Berquist Soule's impressive archival work and fine pen brought him to life." * Charles Walker, University of California, Davis *"A superb study of a neglected figure of the Spanish-American Catholic Enlightenment whose capacious mind and broad cultural, political, and social reforming agenda here expertly come alive. Berquist Soule casts her net widely, utilizing documentation from over a dozen archives, to reconstruct the bishop's agenda and struggles. Her work marvelously reminds readers that his utopia was disciplined by reality: competing and conflicting agendas of the locals taught the eager bishop the limits of his vision." * Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, University of Texas *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Utopias in the New World Chapter 1. The Books of a Bishop Chapter 2. Parish Priests and Useful Information Chapter 3. Imagining Towns in Trujillo Chapter 4. Improvement Through Education Chapter 5. The Hualgayoc Silver Mine Chapter 6. Local Botany: The Products of Utopia Chapter 7. The Legacy of Martínez Compañón Conclusion. Martínez Compañón's Native Utopia Afterword Sources and Methods Appendix 1. Ecclesiastical Questionnaire Sent to Priests Prior to the Visita Party's Arrival Appendix 2. Natural History Questionnaire Sent to Priests Prior to the Visita Party's Arrival Notes Archives and Special Collections Consulted Index Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisFollowing the stories of families who built their lives and fortunes across the Atlantic Ocean, Intimate Bonds explores how households anchored the French empire and shaped the meanings of race, slavery, and gender in the early modern period. As race-based slavery became entrenched in French laws, all household members in the French Atlantic world —regardless of their status, gender, or race—negotiated increasingly stratified legal understandings of race and gender.Through her focus on household relationships, Jennifer L. Palmer reveals how intimacy not only led to the seemingly immutable hierarchies of the plantation system but also caused these hierarchies to collapse even before the age of Atlantic revolutions. Placing families at the center of the French Atlantic world, Palmer uses the concept of intimacy to illustrate how race, gender, and the law intersected to form a new worldview. Through analysis of personal, mercantile, and legal relationships, Trade Review"Intimate Bonds illuminates how slaves and free people of color challenged the hardening racial and social hierarchies of the eighteenth century. . . . The well-crafted blend of deep archival research and insightful prose makes Intimate Bonds a terrific addition to seminars on race, colonialism, and gender, as well as the Atlantic World, early America, early Latin America, and France." * Journal of Social History *"A striking and original study that will engage both scholars and students in its vivid exploration of families and people in eighteenth-century Atlantic France. Extensive and detailed archival research undergirds each narrative gem. The prose is simple and lively, hiding the author's hard work of empirically verifying familial and historical connections." * Sue Peabody, Washington State University *"Intimate Bonds is a deeply-researched book that offers an important intervention in the fields of early modern French and French Atlantic history. Analyzing a broader range of actors than previous historians, Jennifer L. Palmer sheds important new light on the contested, constructed, and shifting meanings of 'race' in the French Atlantic world." * Brett Rushforth, University of Oregon *

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Book SynopsisThis is one of the first books about the Spanish period in West Florida (1797-1805) written from the Spanish point of view. Using Spanish archival sources, Gilbert Din is able to shed new light on the machinations of William Augustus Bowles, an adventurer who sought to introduce goods, subvert the Creek Indians, and deprive the Spaniards of territory.Trade Review“Using a plethora of previously unexamined documents from a number of archives, this work provides the first clear understanding of William Augustus Bowles and his exploits along the Spanish Gulf Coast and among the Creek Indians, demonstrating unequivocally that the glory-seeking adventurer was not the tragic heroic figure that he and previous historians have claimed.” — F. Todd Smith, University of North Texas

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Book SynopsisInvestigates the ways in which colonial peoples chose to express their bodies and identities through clothing and adornment. Diana DiPaolo examines strategies of combining local-made and imported goods not simply to emulate European elites, but instead to create a language of new appearance by which to communicate in an often contentious colonial world.Trade ReviewHighly readable but also innovative in its approach to a broad array of material from diverse colonial contexts." — Carolyn White, University of Nevada, Reno"Loren brings together a sampling of the extensive literature on the archaeology of clothing and adornment to argue that artifacts of the body acquire their meaning through cultural practice. She shows how dress serves as social discourse and a tool of identity negotiation." — Kathleen Deagan, Florida Museum of Natural History

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Book SynopsisBrings together archaeological research on French colonial sites from Maryland, South Carolina, the Gulf Coast and Lower Mississippi Valley, the Caribbean, and French Guiana to explore the nature of French colonization. Specific contributions explore foodways, ceramics, plantations, architecture, and colonial interactions with Africans and Native Americans.

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Book SynopsisContributors to this volume illustrate previously unknown and variable effects of colonialism by analysing skeletal remains and burial patterns from never-before-studied regions in the Americas to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The result is the first step toward a new synthesis of archaeology and bioarchaeology.Trade ReviewBreaks new ground regarding how to think about colonial encounters in innovative ways that pay attention to a wide range of issues from health and demography to identity formations and adaptation." - Debra L. Martin, coeditor of The Bioarchaeology of Violence"Amply demonstrates the breadth and variability of the impact of colonialism." - Ken Nystrom, State University of New York at New Paltz"Pushes the boundaries of colonial studies. . . . Scholars of all levels, from undergraduates to advanced professionals, should consult this volume in pursuit of excellent examples of biocultural and theory-driven explorations of bioarchaeology." - Antiquity"Provides a nuanced, empirical examination of the effects of colonialism on the bodies of the colonized. . . . and builds on and adds diversity to earlier studies that focused on contact between Europeans and Indigenous Americans." - Choice

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Book SynopsisContrary to popular notions, Haiti-U.S. relations have not only been about Haitian resistance to U.S. domination. In Haiti and the Uses of America, Chantalle F. Verna makes evident that there have been key moments of cooperation that contributed to nation-building in both countries. Trade Review"Tracing Haitian post-occupation engagement with the United States, Verna rejects a narrow binary interpretation and convincingly demonstrates the importance of a thoroughly informed, nuanced lens in any analysis of Haiti–U.S. relations." -- Robert Maguire * Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University *"This groundbreaking, deeply researched, and richly rewarding study illuminates how Haitians were key agents of inter-American connection and collaboration during the mid-twentieth century. Chantalle F. Verna rethinks Haiti's relation to the United States at that time by asking complex questions and reaching nuanced insights that seem just as relevant and important with reference to today." -- Kate Ramsey * author of The Spirits and the Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti *"In keeping with the careful nuance she employs, Verna weaves analysis of race and class throughout the book, yet without allowing either theme to eclipse other concerns and motivations. The work is especially well written and easy to navigate." * American Historical Review *"This text is already an important work in multiple historiographies. Haiti and the Uses of America will serve as the foundation for such future scholarship on cultural and diplomatic interactions in Haitian foreign policy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as well as the multifaceted relationship between Haiti, the United States, and international development." * H-Net *"The insights of Haiti and the Uses of America raise new questions about Haiti in the past and present....In connecting the U.S. occupation to the U.N. development projects that came later, Verna provides an unbroken line from the early twentieth-century occupation to the present one. What would we learn if scholars were more open to the ambiguities of the first occupation and more receptive to the anti-occupation voices of the present? After reading Verna, these become impossible to ignore." * New West Indian Guide *"[A] meaningful new book...[This] well-researched and nuanced book deepens the knowledge of scholars of Haiti and Caribbean intellectual, social, and economic historians interested in local and national challenges that impeded the prosperity of Haiti's most vulnerable citizens." * Journal of Haitian Studies *Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsNote on Terminology and LanguageAbbreviations IntroductionChapter 1. The Promise and Peril of Foreign Ties, 1791–1915Chapter 2. “With the Spirit of Friendship”: U.S. Occupation, Indigenisme, and Haitian Nationalism, 1915–1934Chapter 3. Pan-Americanism in Port-au-Prince: Historical Memories and Urban Activities, 1934–1945Chapter 4. La Nouvelle Cooperation:Cultivating Knowledge through Haiti-U.S. Ties, 1936–1948Chapter 5. “Viva UNESCO”: A Subtle Embedding of the United States in Haiti, 1948–1953Epilogue: Enduring Promises NotesNote on SourcesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisContrary to popular notions, Haiti-U.S. relations have not only been about Haitian resistance to U.S. domination. In Haiti and the Uses of America, Chantalle F. Verna makes evident that there have been key moments of cooperation that contributed to nation-building in both countries. Trade Review"Tracing Haitian post-occupation engagement with the United States, Verna rejects a narrow binary interpretation and convincingly demonstrates the importance of a thoroughly informed, nuanced lens in any analysis of Haiti–U.S. relations." -- Robert Maguire * Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University *"This groundbreaking, deeply researched, and richly rewarding study illuminates how Haitians were key agents of inter-American connection and collaboration during the mid-twentieth century. Chantalle F. Verna rethinks Haiti's relation to the United States at that time by asking complex questions and reaching nuanced insights that seem just as relevant and important with reference to today." -- Kate Ramsey * author of The Spirits and the Law: Vodou and Power in Haiti *"In keeping with the careful nuance she employs, Verna weaves analysis of race and class throughout the book, yet without allowing either theme to eclipse other concerns and motivations. The work is especially well written and easy to navigate." * American Historical Review *"This text is already an important work in multiple historiographies. Haiti and the Uses of America will serve as the foundation for such future scholarship on cultural and diplomatic interactions in Haitian foreign policy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as well as the multifaceted relationship between Haiti, the United States, and international development." * H-Net *"The insights of Haiti and the Uses of America raise new questions about Haiti in the past and present....In connecting the U.S. occupation to the U.N. development projects that came later, Verna provides an unbroken line from the early twentieth-century occupation to the present one. What would we learn if scholars were more open to the ambiguities of the first occupation and more receptive to the anti-occupation voices of the present? After reading Verna, these become impossible to ignore." * New West Indian Guide *"[A] meaningful new book...[This] well-researched and nuanced book deepens the knowledge of scholars of Haiti and Caribbean intellectual, social, and economic historians interested in local and national challenges that impeded the prosperity of Haiti's most vulnerable citizens." * Journal of Haitian Studies *Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsNote on Terminology and LanguageAbbreviations IntroductionChapter 1. The Promise and Peril of Foreign Ties, 1791–1915Chapter 2. “With the Spirit of Friendship”: U.S. Occupation, Indigenisme, and Haitian Nationalism, 1915–1934Chapter 3. Pan-Americanism in Port-au-Prince: Historical Memories and Urban Activities, 1934–1945Chapter 4. La Nouvelle Cooperation:Cultivating Knowledge through Haiti-U.S. Ties, 1936–1948Chapter 5. “Viva UNESCO”: A Subtle Embedding of the United States in Haiti, 1948–1953Epilogue: Enduring Promises NotesNote on SourcesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisThis work brings together 16 essays in cultural history. Taken together, the essays aim to provide a reassessment of the complex process of cultural adjustment among the settler societies of colonial British and revolutionary America.

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Book SynopsisThese essays, drawn from the author's work since 1964, address three themes in American history in the century preceding the 1760s: authority in colonial British America; the political and constitutional development of these colonial entities; and shifting constitutional tensions within the empire.

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Book SynopsisThis volume brings together 16 essays on the American revolution which approach the revolution as an episode in British imperial history rather than as the first step in the creation of an American nation. The text also investigates why the American revolution was not more radical.

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Book SynopsisThrough a careful consideration of the peasantry and the role of the NGOs, this work offers a nuanced understanding of the development process that has taken place in Mozambique and other southern African countries since independence. It draws on oral data and archival research.

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Book SynopsisThe Englishwoman Gertrude Bell lived an extraordinary life. She rode with bandits, braved desert shamals and was captured by Bedouins. This volume of three of her notebooks preserves Bell's elegant, vibrant prose and presents Bell as a brilliant tactician fearlessly confronting her vulnerabilities.

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Book SynopsisIn one of the few anthropological works focusing on a contemporary Middle Eastern city, Colonial Jerusalem explores a vibrant urban centre at the core of the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This book shows how colonialism, far from being simply a fixture of the past as is often suggested, remains a crucial component of Palestinian and Israeli realities today.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisThis collection addresses the issues raised by the postcolonial condition, considering nationhood, history, gender and identity from an interdisciplinary perspective.Table of ContentsPart I Contesting nations zionism from the standpoint of its victims, Edward W. Said; Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the standpoint of its Jewish victims, Ella Shohat; Of Balkans and Bantustans - ethnic cleansing and the crisis in national legitimation, Rob Nixon; "No longer in a future heaven" - Gender, race and nationalism, Anne McClintock; Currying favour - The politics of British educational and cultural policy in India, 1813-1954, Gauri Viswanathan; The nation as imagined community, Jean Franco. Part II Multiculturalism and diasporic identities; on the question of a theory of (Third) World literature, Madhava Prasad; Caliban speaks 500 years later, Roberto Fernandez Retamar; The local and the global: Globalization and ethnicity, Stuart Hall ; Multiculturalism and the neo-conservatives, Robert Stam ; Shuckin' off the African American native other: What's "Po-Mo" got to do with it?, Wahneema Lubiano; Identity, meaning and the African-American, Michael Hanchard; Just looking for trouble - Robert Maplethorpe and fantasies of race, Kobena Mercer. Part III Gender and the politics of race Under Western eyes - Feminist scholarship and colonial Chandra Talpade Mohanty; Traddutora, Traditora - A paradigmatic figure of Chicana feminism, Norma Alarcon ; American Indian women- At the centre of indigenous resistance in contemporary North America, M. Annette Jaimes with Theresa Halsey; "On the threshold of woman's era" - Lynching, empire, and sexuality in Black feminist theory, Hazel V. Carby; Making empire respectable - The politics of race and sexual morality in 20th-century colonial cultures, Ann L. Stoler; Age, race, class, and sex - Women redefining difference, Audre Lorde; Gender is burning - Questions of appropriation and subversion, Judith Butler; Sisterhood - Political solidarity between women bell hooks. Part IV Postcolonial theory Not you/like you - Post-colonial women and the interlocking questions of identity and difference, Trinh T. Minh-ha; Is the "post" in "post-colonial" the "post" in "post-modern"?, Kwame Anthony Appiah; The world and the home, Homi K. Bhabha; Reading Africa through Foucault - V.Y. Mudimbe's reaffirmation of the subject, Manthia Diawana; Teaching for the times Gayatri Spivak; Postcolonial criticism and Indian historiography Gyan Prakash; The postcolonial aura - Third World criticism in the age of global capitalism, Arif Dirlik.

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Book SynopsisAn in-depth look at the urban history of British Bombay.Trade Review"A Joint Enterprise is an ambitious, original, and interesting book on a valuable topic. Preeti Chopra provides unique interpretations of, among other things, the Indian reception and interpretation of the neo-Gothic architecture of the colonial regime." —Anthony King, author of Spaces of Global Cultures: Architecture, Urbanism, Identity"A Joint Enterprise is an extremely able and well-informed survey of an interesting subject." —The Times Literary Supplement"Chopra’s monograph is a true contribution to bringing architectural practice and perception into the history of Bombay city." —Journal of Asian Studies"Offers a skillfully crafted and nuanced reading of the colonial experience that challenges the polemics of racial and cultural segregation while articulating far more complex hierarchies of power." —Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History"A Joint Enterprise provides a fabulous history of colonial domination and resistance through architectural and urban development in colonial Bombay." —South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies"One ends Chopra’s engaging book wondering if the first major dents to colonial Bombay’s famed cosmopolitanism came from these segregating medical and housing policies rather than events like the Hindu-Muslim Riots of 1893." —Hamazor "Offers a new perspective on urban social history." —Enterprise and Society "Vital to understanding the architectural genealogy of the city."— Buildings & Landscape"This book is a valuable addition to the literature on South Asian urbanism. The ‘joint public realm’ is a useful effort to conceptualize the manner in which Indians engaged with notions like the public." —Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient"Preeti Chopra’s A Joint Enterprise is a detailed, well-researched, illuminating work that makes a clear argument: ‘colonial’ cities are far less ‘colonial’ than we imagine. [It] is a major accomplishment, clearly the product of intensive research over many years by a scholar deeply committed to and knowledgeable in her chosen field." —Interventions"As ambitious as it is imaginative, this book combines critical perspectives on the materiality and visibility of the modern city with an insightful examination of the agency of both colonial rulers and indigenous subjects. Elegantly presented and effectively developed." —Victorian StudiesTable of ContentsAuthor’s Note Introduction 1. A Joint Enterprise 2. Anglo-Indian Architecture and the Meaning of Its Styles 3. The Biography of an Unknown Native Engineer 4. Dividing Practices in Bombay’s Hospitals and Lunatic Asylums 5. An Unforeseen Landscape of Contradictions 6. Of Gods and Mortal Heroes: Conundrums of the Secular Landscape of Colonial Bombay Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExamines how “Indianness” has propagated U.S. conceptions of empireTrade Review"Theoretically rich, and broad in its intellectual scope, The Transit of Empire puts Indianness at the center of American histories that are not only national, but explicitly imperial and colonial. Jodi Byrd’s brilliant critique of contemporary multicultural liberalism places American Indian and Indigenous studies in close dialogue with postcolonial scholarship, transforming both in the process. It is a work of power, complexity, and commitment, and should not be missed by anyone in these fields." —Philip Deloria"The Transit of Empire is a sophisticated and groundbreaking work of indigenous critical theory in which Jodi Byrd reveals and explores the cacophonies of colonialism in literary, historical, and political settings." —Kevin Bruyneel, Babson CollegeTable of ContentsContentsPreface: Full Fathom FiveIntroduction: Indigenous Critical Theory and the Diminishing Returns of Civilization1. Is and Was: Poststructural Indians without Ancestry2. “This Island’s Mine”: The Parallax Logics of Caliban’s Cacophony3. The Masks of Conquest: Wilson Harris’s Jonestown and the Thresholds of Grievability4. “Been to the Nation, Lord, but I Couldn’t Stay There”: Cherokee Freedmen, Internal Colonialism, and the Racialization of Citizenship5. Satisfied with Stones: Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization and the Discourses of Resistance6. Killing States: Removals, Other Americans, and the “Pale Promise of Democracy”Conclusion: Zombie ImperialismAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"With clear and astute arguments that are executed with force and lucidity, Neda Atanasoski offers a wonderfully rich comparative study of postsocialist regions whose histories have been intertwined in various ways with American discursive and material practices and politics. The sustained focus on these kinds of U.S. historical impulses and their complex connections to Eastern Europe is a highly original and a much-needed intervention." —Katarzyna Marciniak, Ohio University"Humanitarian Violence is transnational and interdisciplinary scholarship at its best. It offers a much needed deeper look at the constitution of the modern West, while at the same time convincingly arguing for the continued importance of literary analysis and suggesting ways in which this analysis can be related to visual genres such as photojournalism, film, and digital art." —Fatima El-Tayeb, University of California, San Diego Table of ContentsContentsIntroduction: The Racial Reorientations of U.S. Humanitarian Imperalism1. Racial Time and the Other: Mapping the Postsocialist Transition2. The Vietnam War and the Ethics of Failure: Heart of Darkness and the Emergence of Humanitarian Feeling at the Limits of Imperial Critique3. Restoring National Faith: The Soviet-Afghan War in U.S. Media and Politics4. Dracula as Ethnic Conflict: The Technologies of Humanitarian Militarism in Serbia and Kosovo5. Feminist Politics of Secular Redemption at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Epilogue. Beyond Spectacle: The Hidden Geographies of the War at HomeAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Aligning herself with the most vulnerable, and armed with a sharp stylus, Shampa Biswas deftly dissects the sprawling corpus of the global nuclear order. Focusing her analysis on the sinews of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, she tracks and traces the modalities through which ideological allure and enforced abstinence, sanitized events and horrifying accidents, faith in deterrence and flows of deathly waste, commodity fetishism and enlightenment technologies of rule, expensive state security and opaque political economy come together to power this colonial regime. Nuclear Desire offers profound and provocative insights into the hierarchical structuring and colonial governance of contemporary global orders."—Himadeep Muppidi, Vassar College"Nuclear Desire moves us to rethink the route to a nuclear-free world as one that must center reasons of peace and social justice. Shampa Biswas moves beyond well-rehearsed critiques—indeed, beyond critique itself—to give us new insights into how a more secure world might simultaneously be more peaceful and just."—J. Marshall Beier, McMaster University"This book is a heartfully rendered, powerfully argued, and intricately crafted deconstruction of the global nuclear order."—Perspectives on Politics "Nuclear Desire is one of the most comprehensive applications of a critical methodology to the topic of nuclear weapons, and a welcome contribution to the growing field of critical nuclear studies from a postcolonial perspective." —Nonproliferation ReviewTable of ContentsContentsAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsIntroduction: Use and Waste in the Global Nuclear Order1. Intentions and Effects: The Proliferation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime2. Whose Nuclear Order? A Postcolonial Critique of an Enlightenment Project3. Unusable, Dangerous, and Desirable: Nuclear Weapons as Fetish Commodities4. Costly Weapons: The Political Economy of Nuclear PowerConclusion. Decolonizing the Nuclear World: Can the Subaltern Speak?Appendix: The Nuclear Nonproliferation RegimeNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisThe author of this book offers a paradigm for the interpretation of south-eastern Native American, and Spanish colonial history, and another way of viewing the development of the United States. She describes the genesis of those North American groups collectively known as Maskoki.

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Trade ReviewWorth concentrates on those passages from the Spanish documentation that [describe] the mission towns and populations, the Anglo-sponsored Indian aggression against them, and official Spanish reaction from the provincial capital of St. Augustine. Particularly interesting are his extracts and commentaries dealing with the little known Chichimeco, who were the first to attack the Guale islands in 1661. - Journal of Southern History ""An excellent job of positioning documents in the context of other published primary source material on Florida. Annotations about the physical attributes of the original manuscripts, the identification of individuals and places and notes on historical context are all excellent.... Worth is to be commended for his overview, annotations, and maintenance of the integrity and context of this collection."" - Ethnohistory

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Book SynopsisBetween 1880 and 1920, Muslim Sufi orders became pillars of the colonial regimes and economies of Senegal and Mauritania.

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Book SynopsisWest African Challenge to Empire examines the anticolonial war in the Volta and Bani region in 1915–16. It was the largest challenge that the French ever faced in their West African colonial empire, and one of the largest armed oppositions to colonialism anywhere in Africa.Trade Review“A must-read for any scholar interested in the military and social history of colonial rule in Africa.” * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“This is only one of many historical studies written by anthropologists in recent years, but it is surely one of the best.” * The International History Review *“This book is an outstanding example of how two scholars from the distinct disciplines of history and anthropology can join talents to produce an excellent study, one that adequately combines dense narratives with insightful theories … [It] presents us with not only a dense political narrative about men and motives, but also a cultural history, with the magic and supernatural dimensions of war.” * Historian *

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Book SynopsisWest African Challenge to Empire examines the anticolonial war in the Volta and Bani region in 191516. It was the largest challenge that the French ever faced in their West African colonial empire, and one of the largest armed oppositions to colonialism anywhere in Africa.Trade Review“A must-read for any scholar interested in the military and social history of colonial rule in Africa.” * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“This is only one of many historical studies written by anthropologists in recent years, but it is surely one of the best.” * The International History Review *“This book is an outstanding example of how two scholars from the distinct disciplines of history and anthropology can join talents to produce an excellent study, one that adequately combines dense narratives with insightful theories … [It] presents us with not only a dense political narrative about men and motives, but also a cultural history, with the magic and supernatural dimensions of war.” * Historian *

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Book SynopsisThis brilliant little book tells the story of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League from its origins in the 1940s to the present and the controversies over Julius Malema and his influence in contemporary youth politics.Trade Review“Glaser shows that while the impact of the Youth League has ebbed and flowed, black South Africa youth have shaped the nation's politics in fundamental ways. Authoritative, streamlined, and highly readable, this book deserves a wide readership.” * African Studies Quarterly *“Glaser’s book provides a well-written analysis of the competition between ideologies and strategies within the ANC. … Throughout, Glaser highlights the tensions between those leaders who stood for ideological purity as Africanists and those who gravitated to a more pragmatic approach that stressed ideological pluralism. …[He] …perceptively [analyzes] the ways in which South African youth have ignited and fueled the nationalist cause in South Africa over the last seventy-five years.” * African Studies Review *“As Clive Glaser notes in his nuanced and lively account, the [ANC] Youth League have, at certain times, played a pivotal role in shaping policy in its parent organisation. For Glaser, the rise of the YL needs to be seen in the context of the broader political and economic landscape of industrialisation and urbanisation, when ‘the townships of Johannesburg became an extraordinary melting pot of young, educated Africans’…This book is sure to become required reading for students and scholars of youth politics in South Africa and the continent more widely.” * Journal of African History *

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